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Is preaching worth
the effort?
October 21, 2007
One morning this week I was thinking about preaching, and reflecting on the
difficulties of preaching to those who aren’t listening, or who don’t want to
understand the scriptures, or who don’t turn up to listen in the first place. It
was a gloomy kind of reflection as you can imagine. It is made worse when one
looks not just at the way people behave during the sermon but what kind of life
changes are seen after listening to many sermons.
That night, at the home group I am part of, we discussed the famous parable
recorded in Matthew 13 (and Mark 4). Some editions of the Bible call it the
parable of the Sower, others the Parable of the Four Soils, and some the Parable
of the Seed. But which is it (at least one person in the group was keen to go
for all three)? It certainly has reference to those three things. And the first
telling of the story ends with the instruction to those who have ears, to hear.
So it could be about the kinds of responses the hearers make.
On the other hand in the context of the gospels, it seems to be about the
success (or actually the lack of success) of Jesus as the preacher of the
kingdom of God. It seems to be giving an explanation for the lack of progress of
his mission, while at the same time assuring his hearers that with the right
soil there would be a great harvest.
But both the story and its explanation seem to focus on the seed. The
explanation says the seed is the word of the kingdom. (In fact the explanation
only tells us what the parable is about, it does not tell us what the parable
means). The main meaning of the parable seems to be about the effectiveness of
the seed, ie of the message of the kingdom.
The different circumstances of people do affect how the word is able to work,
and it is true that it is able to be disabled, or stolen away. But in responsive
ground the word produces a great effect. The parable is not suggesting that
different kinds of seed should be tried in different kinds of soil. Or that the
seed itself is defective.
On the contrary the sower keeps on sowing because he or she knows that this seed
really produces good crops. So all of us who hand on the message to others –
listen to this story.
Dale
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